


Revolutionary

by i_claudia



Series: Gentlemen of Quality [3]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-12
Updated: 2009-11-12
Packaged: 2017-11-05 08:01:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/404131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_claudia/pseuds/i_claudia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s uncomfortable not with himself but on behalf of the men next to him, these men who will never know what it is to be standing near someone who burns like Merlin does, mercurial, hot enough to melt even the strongest steel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Revolutionary

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the kinkmeme and posted on LJ [here](http://i-claudia.livejournal.com/38154.html). (12 November 2009)

Arthur’s just made himself comfortable in the deep armchair, balancing his pipe against its plush crimson arm while he roots around in his pocket for his tobacco. It’s been a long day: his father’s been after him about profits because Morgana’s been after his father about worker’s rights and the new labour laws, and all he wants to do is sink back into something soft and enjoy the company of his peers without having to exert much effort himself. (That’s _all_ , he tells himself sternly. Alabaster skin and slender fingers have no place in his mind; he could care less that there’s no one here with sharp eyes and a sharper tongue to make him feel clumsy and thick.)

He came to the club expecting to find peace, a sanctuary where Morgana couldn’t track him down to rage about eight-year-olds working the spindles. Instead, he finds a conversation that’s taking increasingly uncomfortable turns.

“...the latest fad, apparently,” Leon’s saying. He’s a politician, a rising star, and Arthur’s found him to be quite likable as long as the topic of conversation has nothing to do with political reform. “Some fellow by the name of Emrys. Mervin?”

_Merlin_ , Arthur says silently, but he keeps his eyes focused on his pipe, concentrating on packing every bit of tobacco down until it’s even across the top.

“Merlin,” someone else corrects Leon.

“Merlin,” Leon agrees amiably. “All the rage among the lower classes, apparently. _Revolutionary_ , they’re calling him.”

Arthur strikes a match and lights his pipe, all his concentration focused on controlling the tremble in his fingers. The men around him, his friends, are too keen for his own good, and he cannot afford to draw attention to himself.

“Fah, revolution,” Percival scoffs. He’s old money, far older than Arthur, who’s only an aristocrat because his father seized opportunity, fought tooth and claw and emerged triumphant, hand firmly on the reins of industry. Most people forget that before Uther the Pendragons were just another clan of country landowners; Percival never forgets, has never forgiven Arthur wielding the influence he does. “Let someone publish a few penny dreadfuls these days and suddenly they think they’re the next Dickens. He’ll learn soon enough.”

“He’d best.” Lionel’s sitting in the corner, legs crossed lazily in front of him, fingers linked comfortably over his stomach. “He’ll find himself between the devil and the deep blue sea if he doesn’t take care. His work is starting to draw the wrong sort of attention.”

The men lean forward collectively to discuss that particular tidbit of information, eyes alight with gossip; vultures, Arthur thinks, scenting blood. He puffs at his pipe and shuts his eyes for a moment, leaning his head back against the cushion. As if these men know anything about Merlin, about this man they’ve decided to trot out for their own amusement.

Arthur knows Merlin, knows his angles and the softness of his skin, the care he takes trimming his whiskers in the morning. Arthur knows why he wears a bowler instead of a top hat: in defiance, in solidarity, in part because he could care less about what he looks like when he’s caught fire over an idea, burning oil late into the night and coming to Arthur the next morning, his hands stained with ink and a sheaf of papers in his hand, his eyes fever-bright from exhaustion and exhilaration both. Those are good mornings, Merlin flushed with discovery and reckless, pushing Arthur down and pulling off his half-done necktie and sucking deep bruises onto his neck, where they’d be hidden by Arthur’s high linen collar.

(Merlin’s eyes had been glazed for different reasons when Morgana had found him, took him in and raised him up out of the dens where she’d stumbled over him, strung out on opium and trembling with the oppressive weight of genius. That’s changed now, over, and Arthur knows better than to bring it up, can’t bear to see the darkness gather in the corners of Merlin’s face whenever he stops long enough to remember.)

“Arthur,” someone says, drawing him out of the memories, “what do you think about him, then? Didn’t your cousin set him up to begin with?”

Arthur blinks, tries to remember what they’re talking about, which is definitely not the way Merlin’s eyelashes look when the moon is full and he falls asleep against Arthur’s shoulder, trapping his arm.

“Lady Morgana?” he asks, striking another match for his pipe, which has gone out. “Yes, she funded his first book, got him started.”

“But what do _you_ think about him?” Leon presses. “You’ve met him, do you think he’s as dangerous as these fellows want to believe? Is he really very immoral?”

Arthur wishes now that he’d been paying attention, because Merlin enjoys hearing the stories that paint him as some kind of bacchanalian reprobate, too busy having orgies to bother hanging around coffeehouses debating the merits of Smith or Malthus or Bentham or any number of people Arthur hasn’t heard of or doesn’t pay attention to, arguing furiously about free will and love and the rightful order of the universe.

When Arthur tells Merlin the gossip he hears, he doesn’t bother with specifics, doesn’t tell him about the stories that whisper of criminal offenses, of prostitutes and buggery and other things that strike too close to bear dwelling on.

“Immoral?” Arthur says now, carefully thoughtful. “I doubt it.” It’s a lie; he knows exactly how immoral Merlin is, still has marks from where Merlin tied him to the bed and fucked him without mercy, the muscles in his thighs flexing against Arthur’s skin. Arthur had arched into him, desperate, watched hungrily as Merlin bit his lip hard enough to draw blood, trying to keep himself from screaming.

(Arthur found out the hard way that Merlin was a screamer, the first time he tried to use his mouth on Merlin. Luckily, no one recognized or even saw them; it had been a pretty dodgy alley to begin with, and it’d been almost ridiculously easy to outrun the police in that part of town. Now he tries to take every advantage of Merlin’s weakness, his skin going hot and shivery beyond belief at the mere thought of driving Merlin past the point of restraint, wants to push until Merlin breaks and screams his name loud enough for all of London to hear, but Merlin’s clever, too clever by half, and frustrates Arthur at every turn.)

But he’s not about to give out that sort of information, isn’t about to hand these men – friends though they may be – a ticket to the scandal of the century, isn’t about to risk losing Merlin to the executioner even if the last hanging was a year before he was even born, so he just says, “He’s an intellectual. They’re always trying to start things, mix things up. I wouldn’t pay him much mind.”

“Well-seasoned layabouts, the lot of them,” Percival comments, disdainful, and Arthur allows himself to hope that that’s the end of it. He’s embarrassed; not shamed, never, not when he’s kept warm by the memory of Merlin’s hunched shoulders as he crushes another ruined page in a fit of livid temper, the vision of Merlin stretched out on Arthur’s own sheets, long limbs looking rumpled as the blankets as he blinks lazily at Arthur, sated. No, he’s uncomfortable not with himself but on behalf of the men next to him, these men who will never know what it is to be standing near someone who burns like Merlin does, mercurial, hot enough to melt even the strongest steel.

Joy and sorrow mix together in a roiling boil under Merlin’s skin, seething just beneath calm movements, more addictive than the best opium India can produce. When Merlin fixes his gaze on something, it occupies his entire soul; now that Arthur’s had a taste of that, a taste of what it feels like to be the center of an earthquake, he can’t give it up, an all-consuming need that will take him over, use him up and destroy him if he isn’t careful.

Arthur isn’t sure that he wants to be careful, doesn’t want to keep Merlin under wraps like some quiet sordid mistress, to be swept away at the faintest whisper of gossip, but Merlin prefers the dark, loves it best when he steps into Arthur’s room after the twilight has long since faded. Then, he looks wild and fey, wrapped in the night like a king, the stars his crown, and Arthur worships gladly at his throne, gives his body as a willing oblation, surrenders to the frissions of fear and bliss which chase each other over his skin at Merlin’s touch.

He stays at the club long enough to finish the tobacco in his his pipe and accept three invitations for the next week: two for parties and one for a picnic luncheon at which, Percival had hinted, there would be both croquet and beautiful women aplenty. Arthur privately thinks he’ll probably much prefer the polo match he’s agreed to play that morning, but he nods politely and laughs at Percival’s jokes and makes his escape as soon as is polite.

The evening is unseasonably warm, even for late May, and the streets are choked with people out enjoying the weather. Understandable, after the winter they’ve had, but Arthur is profusely grateful that his driver knows every possible shortcut between the club and the Pendragon townhouse. His palms are itching; his skin feels hot and stretched over his bones, and all he wants is to fall into Merlin’s arms and forget about the day.

Merlin’s waiting for him already, his feet stretched toward the fire in Arthur’s study, a glass of scotch in his hand and his nose in Mary Wollstonecraft’s treatise. Arthur recognizes the book because Morgana threw it at him once; one corner of the cover is still bent.

“Hope you don’t mind putting me up for the night,” Merlin says when Arthur walks in and sheds his coat with a contented sigh before loosening his necktie. “My landlady’s thrown me out again and Morgana refuses to take me back anymore.”

Arthur doesn’t bother stopping the delighted chuckle from bubbling out of his throat. “Again? Scoundrel.”

Merlin stands, setting his book aside carefully. “I am a terrible influence,” he admits cheerfully. “Someone should take me in hand before I single-handedly ruin London society for good.”

Arthur hooks his fingers around Merlin’s wrist and draws him closer, brushing his lips softly against Merlin’s temple, not quite a kiss. Merlin smells of ink and old books, like he’s spent the day buried amidst stacks of tomes, wrestling with thinkers just as Arthur wrestles with numbers for his father.

“You’ve already ruined London society,” Arthur murmurs into Merlin’s hair, scraping his nails gently against the underside of Merlin’s wrist, and Merlin shivers.

“Take me to bed,” he says, and Arthur does.

Merlin wants Arthur to be fast, wants it messy and rough until they’re both gasping for breath, but Arthur slides into him slowly, savouring each hitch in Merlin’s breathing, the sharp lines Merlin’s drawing down his back where he clutches too tightly at Arthur’s skin. He wants to drag this out forever, spend an eternity moving above Merlin, feeling Merlin’s body clench around him and watching Merlin slowly unraveling from the pleasure of it.

_They can’t take this away_ , he thinks fiercely, and they can try, he knows they can, knows they take away everything he thought mattered before, but they can’t take this, can’t touch the way Merlin’s eyes go dark and unfocused, the pressure where he digs his heels into the back of Arthur’s legs, the ragged, choked sounds he makes when Arthur speeds up at last.

“Arthur,” he gasps, burying one hand in Arthur’s hair, tugging hard, and Arthur bows his head, thrusts hard. _Yours_ , he thinks as Merlin cries out beneath him, trembling with the force of his orgasm. _Yours, yours, yours_.

Merlin runs his fingers over Arthur’s face, tracing his cheekbone and down along his jawline until finally pulling Arthur into a deep, sloppy kiss, and that’s what sends Arthur over the edge, the painful familiar intimacy of it, as if Merlin kisses him like this in the open, against the door when Arthur goes off to work and again in the front drive when he comes home.

In the morning Merlin will leave again, go back to his grubby flat and patch things up with his landlady, and Arthur will go to the factory and pretend he hasn’t spent the night fucking another man through the mattress. But for now they lie together, reluctant to separate, so close that Arthur imagines he can hear his own heart beat in Merlin’s chest. He ignores the way his cock is going soft inside Merlin, just presses his nose into Merlin’s neck and breathes deep, lets himself be lulled into peace by the soft circles Merlin’s tracing into his skin.


End file.
